The present invention relates to digital photographic technology, in particular, to optoelectonic systems (OES), and can be used to obtain mosaic digital photographic images.
Known is an optoelectronic photo sensor, comprising a lens and a digital sensor located in the focal plane of the lens (China patent No. CN 101556758, 2010).
Also known is a digital camera with an optical system and a digital electronic sensor located in the focal plane of the optical system (US Application No. 2012/0082441, 2012).
The disadvantage of the known devices of this type is the small image field obtained due to the sizes of the sensor and the lens.
The closest technical solution to the method of the present invention is an optoelectonic photo sensor for aerial photography comprising an optical system and an electronic photosensitive device located on the focal surface of the system (US Application No. 2011/0122300, 2011).
The abovementioned known classical designs “one lens—one matrix” have limitations that are especially significant for aerial survey systems. The size (and pixel dimensions) of digital photo sensors is technologically and physically limited and practically every existing individual photo sensor has a smaller number of photosensitive elements than any large-format film carrier in classical aerial photography systems. Said disadvantage can be compensated in a monoscopic system by using hybrid sensors based on several photo sensors with outputs located on three, two, or one crystal face (instrument case).
Although fairly capacious hybrid photo sensors are known in the art—8, 192×8, 192 pixels (64 M), size 129×129 mm, Loral Fairchild (USA), a hybrid of 8 matrices with single-side outputs; 8, 192×8, 192 pixels (64 M) size 90×90 mm, Fortune Aerospace (USA), a hybrid of 4 matrices with double-ended outputs—the hybrid approach is not promising for several reasons:                “mosaic” hybrid matrices with a minimum gap between mosaic elements matching the complicated production process of the matrices themselves are technologically complicated to manufacture;        it is impossible to obtain resulting capacity of the sensor that would exceed the capacity of the initial matrices more than 4 to 5 times; and        it takes a long time to read the composite picture (based on a preset reading rate) when using the required initial matrices with a maximum available capacity and to make preparations using the “frame readout” technology (which requires mechanical shutters and a low framing rate, resulting in significant limitation of the carrier speed).        
Multiple-lens aerial photography systems that synthesize resulting images (frame) from several simultaneously obtained base images (subframes) are free from the disadvantages inherent in hybrid photo sensors, and from some other limitations common for OESs having a “one lens—one matrix” scheme. The most significant feature of an OES with such a scheme is that each of the lenses forms its own image space (independent of the image spaces of other lenses) that participates in framing in conjunction with a three-dimensional overriding function, which is neither smooth, nor monotonous, nor continuous. Moreover, more problematic with the three-dimensional function that generates a frame from subframes is that each point in each of the base image spaces (or at least in two adjacent base spaces) can correspond to the same point of the native frame spaces. Thus, the subframe's transformation into frames must be described in each particular case with one generating function that refers to the class of piecewise-linear polynomial transformations and rule sets for assigning one or another subframes space (subareas) to a non-overlapping adjacent space (subareas) of the output frame.
Such approach to building photographic equipment is possible only in digital photography, for example, when a picture is recorded onto a plane covered with photo-sensitive material, when integration of several pictures into one frame requires a secondary projection at a minimum, or, in simpler cases, when using image transformers. In addition, photographic correction of the inevitable image distortions caused by the conjugation of several different scale images located in non-parallel focal planes is difficult, if not impossible. Conversely, for digital images, the task of piecewise-linear correction comes down to a calculation of base picture transformation into the initial one using a polynomial model with subsequent formation of a single mosaic image. Concomitantly, with said calculations, some changes can be made to take into account (eliminate) the following:                the slope of photographing axis to the landscape being depicted (perspective distortions);        the distortion of lenses used;        the deviation of real focal distances from the theoretical (scale correction); and        the relative position of lenses (for multiple-lens scheme).        
Application of said approach to the building of systems with several lenses and several matrices located thereunder can yield an optoelectronic system free from all or most of projection type constraints, provided that the complex of transformation functions is defined unambiguously. Thus, the output image can be obtained free from the perspective effect, can be adjusted to the theoretical projection (frame, panoramic, etc.), and can include previously known space-determined distortion presets listed in a table (grid-scale model).